


Travelling Light

by vvwrites (beingvv)



Series: Hakukai [3]
Category: Magic Kaito
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Banter, How to pretend you are not in a relationship with your soulmate, Hurt/Comfort, Long Distance Hurt/Comfort, M/M, M23 Coda, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25533568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beingvv/pseuds/vvwrites
Summary: A pain-sharing soulmate AU where you and your soulmate share intense painful sensations, both emotional and physical.Set during M23 Fist of Blue Sapphire. Yes, this is an obligatory Hakuba finds out Kaito is injured in Singapore fic.--“Whereare you,” Hakuba enunciated, grabbing his arm out of pure reflex, fingertips whitening with the effort, as if that would somehow help Kuroba, stop the bleeding, hold the pain. “How did you get yourself shot?”
Relationships: Hakuba Saguru & Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid, Hakuba Saguru/Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid
Series: Hakukai [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1797130
Comments: 13
Kudos: 169
Collections: Best Sagukai Fics





	Travelling Light

**Author's Note:**

> Our ship is so small, watch me paddle --

Hakuba was fast asleep when the most excruciating, shattering pain shot down his shoulder. The force of it almost knocked him back onto the bed, and he woke up, reeling, blind for half a second, unsure where he was, how he got there. His hand moved, seemingly of its own accord, to grab the phone left on the night stand; before he could breathe, he was calling Kuroba.

“Where are you,” he said without preamble after the third ring. “What happened.”

Kuroba wheezed slightly, sounding like he was putting on a tight smile, and entirely unsurprised by his call. “Good evening to you too, _tantei-san_.” A breath, two, laboured, a thump, back hitting the wall. “Can’t sleep?”

So he was right — KID had been shot.

“ _Where_ are you,” Hakuba enunciated, grabbing his arm out of pure reflex, fingertips whitening with the effort, as if that would somehow help Kuroba, stop the bleeding, hold the pain. “How did you get yourself shot?”

“ ’m not shot,” Kuroba mumbled.

“Don’t lie.” Hakuba said, a touch impatient, heart hammering wildly in his chest. What he had meant to say was, _are you okay?_. “This is a gunshot wound, I can feel it.”

“And how would you know what gunshot wounds feel like?” Kuroba sniped, with less heat than he’d like, but lucid, at least.

Hakuba huffed, not bothering to give a reply, already at his table, browsing the Internet for KID sightings before he could stop himself. London, 4am, morning birds already twittering loudly outside his window, grandfather clock ticking softly in the corridor, Kuroba breathing, strained but steady, in his ear. Blue light from the screen was hurting his eyes. Hakuba squinted.

“Are you in _Singapore_?” a tinge of incredulousness in his voice, a slight hurt that he had no reason to harbour, was not able to mask, which was somehow still okay, because it made Kuroba laugh.

“What, are you jealous?” Kuroba said, sounding amused. Fabric rustling against brick walls, footsteps and sirens nearby, a cat meowed, the clatter of a dustbin lid. KID was in an alley, most probably. Kuroba shifted his weight. “The weather’s too hot, figured you can’t handle it.”

“How very considerate of you,” Hakuba said, fingers trembling slightly on the keyboard, sarcasm dripping from his every word, a shield cracked at the edges. His arm was throbbing, but there was something else. A swelling, nondescript pain in his chest, desperate and sour, making him wonder, even as he choked lightly on his own breath, if Kuroba was having a cardiac tamponade.

“Hey,” Kuroba said, cautious, a hint of alarm in his voice. “Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” Hakuba repeated. “Am I — Kuroba, you were _shot_.”

“Meh,” Kuroba said noncommittally.

“Oh, and apparently a prime suspect in a murder case, fantastic,” Hakuba continued, staring at the screen, unable to believe his eyes. “This just gets better and better. Are you going into shock?” The end of his sentence rose, he was ashamed to say, slightly in pitch.

“I dunno,” Kuroba said, “I don’t think so, but I could swear you just squeaked, so it’s hard to tell.”

“Great,” Hakuba said, pacing in his darkened room, while evidently nursing a heart attack. “Good. Fantastic. Brilliant. I’m going to kill you, Kuroba, you have no idea.”

“Sure, get in line,” Kuroba said. A beat of silence, then, entirely unapologetically, “Sorry, too soon?”

“You,” Hakuba said. “How — I can’t even — ” He was rarely this ineloquent, and only ever in front of Kuroba. He drew a hand through his hair and sighed, steeling himself. “How is the blood loss.”

“Nowhere near what you think it is,” Kuroba said, “So please don’t keel over on my account.”

Hakuba huffed, and sat down heavily in the chair. He felt he was being pulled in a thousand different directions, inexplicably, always and inescapably, towards the East. Singapore was 6,736 miles away. It would take him 13 hours and 15 minutes in the air, transfer times notwithstanding, and it would be an eternity too long.

“Hey,” Kuroba said.

“Still alive?” Hakuba said, voice coming out a little hoarse, not nearly as sarcastic as he’d like.

“Could ask you the same thing,” Kuroba said. “I can feel you — ” Kuroba cut off. Hakuba wondered what Kuroba was going to say. He wasn’t sure how he was feeling, himself, couldn’t tell where he ended and Kuroba began. It was overwhelming, the disorientation, constantly being led astray in his thinking, having no choice but giving chase, endlessly and without cease, Kuroba Kaito, _Kaitou KID_.

At last, Kuroba said: “I knew you couldn’t handle it, _hebo-tantei_.”

“Your concern is touching,” Hakuba replied. “Yet I have to respectfully disagree. How you got yourself shot in a country with one of the strictest gun laws in the world is beyond me.”

Kuroba snorted. Hakuba didn’t bother waiting for him to come up with a witty reply. “I know you think you are invincible,” he heard himself continue in a commendably calm and dry tone, “But please, for the love of God, Kuroba, avoid confrontation with _armed police_. A little sense goes a long way, though I have yet to see evidence of any during your heists.”

Kuroba huffed, half surprised, but somehow also lighter at the edges. Unable to stop himself, Hakuba added: “Don’t take that as a compliment, I implore you.”

Kuroba outright laughed this time. It sounded like a private joke, intimate and heady, making his traitorous heart leap.

For a long second, neither of them said anything. Hakuba continued to click on social media feeds until a picture of Mouri Kogoro et al showed up, and he stared some more. “What possessed you to think a seven year old could handle this?”

“ _Meitantei?_ ” Kuroba said without missing a beat, “He nags less.”

Despite himself, Hakuba snorted. Kuroba seemed to chuckle along, then winced. The bullet must have injured his connective tissue between the shoulder and his arm. Hakuba rubbed the spot instinctively, as if that could send comfort somehow, across the oceans, and winced himself, at how ineffectual that sounded, even in his head.

“Whatever you are doing,” Kuroba interjected, “I’m sure it’s not a pretty look.”

Hakuba sighed heartily.

“You are singularly vexing, Kuroba,” Hakuba said, voice coming out far softer than he’d intended, an unfortunate yet accurate reflection of how he really felt.

Clothes being torn, buttons rolling away. Kuroba was only half listening. “I bet you say that to all the girls,” Kuroba replied with fabric between his teeth, wry.

Hakuba couldn’t decide whether he was fond or exasperated. Probably both. Kuroba had that effect on him, more than anyone he’d ever met. Pills shaking. A drink of water.

“Don’t overdose on the painkillers,” Hakuba said in lieu of anything else. Nagging, he thought. Kuroba was truly ridiculous.

“Why,” Kuroba said, all faux innocence and surprise, “You wouldn’t give me half your liver, if I did?”

If Kuroba was here, he’d grab him by the shoulders, and — and kiss him, probably, but not before giving him a vigorous shake, if only to see what would fall out from that stupid, enigmatic brain of his. Hakuba closed his eyes. “Our blood type is not a match,” he said, straight-faced and with only a hint of desperation in his voice.

Kuroba cackled. A slightly manic, but bright sound, like he understood what Hakuba was really saying. A slight pause, then,

“The coconut water here is pretty good,” Kuroba said. “I’ll bring you some on the way back.”

An inconsequential offer, probably a brush-off to anyone else’s ears, but Hakuba knew this was Kuroba’s way of saying don’t worry. The fact that they understood each other so well made him both incredibly pleased and vaguely annoyed. He wondered whether this, too, was being projected; whether Kuroba had better luck unravelling the tangled mess in his chest.

Silence fell over the line, and Kuroba breathed steadily in his ear. It sounded as if he was bandaging himself haphazardly with his shirt, and was doing a poor job of it.

“You need better supplies,” said Hakuba, after a while.

“I was travelling light,” Kuroba said, a little defensively.

Hakuba placed a hand on his forehead. “Will you let me help?”

“Who said I needed help?” Kuroba shot back, a shadow of a smirk in his voice.

Hakuba rolled his eyes. This, at least, was effortless and familiar; his breath was coming easier now that he was fairly certain Kuroba was not in mortal danger. It’s amazing how fast a person’s priorities can change, how quickly one can fall. He did not bother pointing out to Kuroba that he had yet to deny being KID in this phone call. Somehow this routine had become a favourite pastime of theirs: denial and self-denial, a glance, a smirk, running and chasing, pushing and pulling, a dance of sorts.

They do not acknowledge that they are, for the lack of a better word, soulmates.

Hakuba scrolled through a litany of social media posts, almost mechanically forming a trajectory of KID’s flight, trying to determine where most likely Kuroba fell. Despite Kuroba’s objections, he was good at this. Too good at this, probably, and he knew Kuroba knew, too.

Kuroba snorted in his ear. “Don’t hurt yourself thinking too hard. I won’t be caught.”

It was nonchalant, but Hakuba understood nonetheless. A repeat of a promise, another unspoken understanding between just the two of them. Hakuba smiled despite himself.

“There’s a hospital,” Hakuba said after a while, when he was reasonably certain of his deductions. “About two miles to your Northeast.”

“Wow,” Kuroba said, “Do you not watch movies? Bad guy with gunshot wounds do _not_ go to hospitals, detective.”

“Of course I watch films,” Hakuba countered easily, “And you are not a ‘bad guy’.” He repeated the word with that maddening superiority of his, which he knew Kuroba hated. “An annoyance, certainly, and a very ill-advised speck on my conscience, sometimes, but never a ‘bad guy’.”

“A ringing endorsement,” Kuroba said with equal sarcasm, though somehow still sounding reluctantly pleased, “Thank you.”

He could see the way Kuroba’s eyes danced, glistening in the Singaporean sun, a slimmer of gold in the wide expanse of the blue sea. Cerulean.

“Go be a janitor,” Hakuba said. “Or a nurse, if that suits you better. Find yourself a first aid kit, or at least something sterile. Preferably with lidocaine, because I would prefer my arm to be functioning in the morning, too.”

“Go be a nurse,” Kuroba mumbled, because of course that’s what he’d take away from all this. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Hakubastard.”

Despite himself, Hakuba laughed. Kuroba scoffed lightly, yet he could see clearly the upturn of Kuroba’s lips, a grin more befitting the kid who sat in front of him in class, carefree and seventeen.

They do not acknowledge they were soulmates, because it made no difference. They were themselves drawn together, fallen into orbit, poised by each other’s gravitational pull. Detective and thief, friend and rival, counterbalanced, axiomatic; most of the time when he was with Kuroba, pain was the last thing he felt.

Fabric being torn, a slight zipping sound. The pain in his arm dulled somewhat. “Anything else?” Kuroba asked, shuffling to stand, with a lightness back in his voice, daring and ready, never one to give up.

 _Stay safe,_ he had meant to say. _Don’t die._ The words felt too heavy against his tongue, as did w _ish I was there, please take care of yourself_. So instead he said, “Don’t forget to pack your coconut water, Kuroba, remember anything above 100ml cannot be taken on board.”

“Jesus Christ,” Kuroba griped, “This is why you can’t have nice things.”

In the milliseconds before the line disconnected, he heard Kuroba laugh, a light, happy sound with wings.

He knew Kuroba knew, too.

Hakuba leaned against his chair, pressed the heel of his palm to his eyes, and smiled.

END


End file.
